Annabella+Lewis

On January 28, 1918, 27-year-old Annabella Lewis, a homemaker, died in at West Penn Hospital in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

The autopsy concluded that she had performed a self-induced abortion using slippery elm bark. She had told her husband, Albert, about the abortion, but had denied even being ill to anybody else until her admission to the hospital. She lingered there for about 17 hours until her death.

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources:
 * Allegheny County Coroner's summary on Case No. 191801-333; [|Coroner Case File]
 * Death certificate



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